Herrow!
That's interesting news about Scott Bickett. Although I suppose his death, as you mentioned, was not altogether a surprising experience, it's still too bad that his choices led to such a poor health condition. We had a returned mission president in our ward a little while ago (he just moved) and we went over to his house to eat dinner and he was talking a lot about our choices and how they really determine who we are and who we become etc and especially about people who let themselves become obese and are thereby marginalized when they grow older and can't do the same things that a healthy normal person can do. I think it has to do a lot with putting of the natural man. For example, my natural man was really into playing computer games and I've now realized that that is (and don't quote me on this MOM since I KNOW you said it to me like EVERY day!) a colossal waste of time that I could be using to do some more worthwhile things. Point is, that's just the way the cookie crumbles sometimes.
Had a great week this week btw. Accomplished almost all of our goals except investigators at sacrament meeting and progressing investigators where we were off by one. We were blessed this week to be able to set baptismal dates with 3 new investigators which was pretty good. 2 of them are looking fairly solid as they made it to church this Sunday and had a pretty good experience however the other, Sister Ren, committed but then didn't show up. Elder Lee and I are still trying to figure her and her husband out since we have pretty good lessons with them, show up with members who would be excellent fellowshippers and then they commit but don't keep their commitments. They didn't even come to the Halloween party we had on Saturday night right after we taught them that same afternoon and they said they would come. So, we'll hopefully be able to get ahold of them and find out what concerns they have. A chapel tour might possibly be in order.
We taught the Word of Wisdom twice on Tuesday. The first time failed rather miserably as our investigator, Brother Lu, told us "I live to smoke. Smoking is the purpose to my life..." Which was an opinion rather shocking to us and we didn't really know how to respond to. Elder Lee was like "that is absolutely 100% wrong." It was an interesting lesson to say the least. However, we've been back after that and he does have a modicum of desire to follow Christ and some slight hope for change, however we're going to have to continue to help him build his faith and have decided to continue working with him to give him a chance to righteously exercise his agency. However, our other investigator, brother Zhang (with a baptismal date for the 27th of November), accepted it right away and didn't even finish the rest of the ice tea he had been drinking and just threw it away right then and there. Pretty great faith. He definitely is having many spiritual experiences as he has been reading the Book of Mormon and praying which is really good to see.
It is kind of interesting to see different levels of preparedness among the people that we teach. For example, some people require pretty much no skill or concern resolving and will just accept everything you say and be baptized whereas others may require quite a bit of time and study and prayer before they'll accept anything you say and then there are still others who no matter what you say will never do anything you tell them. I always find it gratifying when people who already have a pretty good life are willing to accept the Gospel just on the basis that they feel like it's true. Not that that makes the conversion of someone going through trials and accepting the gospel as a way to improve their life any less real or miraculous but I always think of what I would do in the position of my investigators and I'm not sure I'd be as receptive unless I felt a real need or emptiness in my life.
In any case, our recent converts are doing pretty well. Brother Zheng got interviewed for the Aaronic Priesthood yesterday and will be getting it next Sunday after church and we have Sister Sun set up to get an interview for a temple recommend so she can go do baptisms for the dead.
We also have organized a trip up to the temple for our whole English class on Saturday and have about 15-20 who seem interested in coming which is pretty exciting. We hope it will be a great experience which will help us use English better as a proselyting tool. We left our ward mission leader a message saying that we might need his help coordinating rides and he called us this morning and said he'll have 6 people on standby to drive people up on Saturday which was pretty cool and kind of makes me think that we should coordinate closer with him since he really seems capable and willing to help.
In any case, we had a pretty good training meeting last week by President Wade. Talked a lot about raising our vision, getting referrals and a variety of other topics including merging the doctrine of Christ in with everything we teach. Pretty good. Lots of things to do better.
Also our "FHE" I guess is kind of set up for next week after church at Sister Breen's house... which is kind of news to us but we'll hopefully be able to get it done pretty well.
Good to hear Uncle Eric's doing well. And your biking excursions. Always a treat. I'll probably be on exchanges this week in a bike area so I'll let you know if we do any epic bike rides.
Anyways, thanks for your emails! I love to read them. Have a wonderful bunderful week!
Love,
-Ian
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